I'm spending my fall semester in London, and I'll have a lot of time over the next few months to travel around the continent. Seeing how the U.K. is an enormous base for traveling by air, it seems like a good idea to take a flight to see places beyond, say, Paris and Brussels. As I've been looking at various websites and sampling ticket prices, the consistent trend is that flying with BA/IB/LH/KL etc. out of LHR is more expensive than flying FR/U2 et al. out of LGW, STN, LTN, or LCY.

With that said, however, does anyone know what the associated costs are of flying out of these more remote airports? I know that if I were to fly out of STN, for example, there's no simple way to get there (I think I'd need to take a bus or train). On the other hand, flying out of Heathrow simply means taking the subway (sorry, Underground) at a significantly lower price.

So, in the end, does the price difference remain great enough to forgo the convenience of flying out of LHR? Or does flying out of Heathrow save me time and money in the long run? Thanks for the help.

Flying into the smaller London airports is an advantage over LHR in my opinion. LHR is a shambles most of the time and would probably take more time to get off the aircraft, through immigration and bag collection etc than hopping on the train for a ride to central London from the smaller airports.

As far as LGW is concerned, Gatwick Express is the fastest way into London, with great Underground connections from London Victoria station, where it terminates. It's 35 minutes in total for the journey from LGW, and a reasonable price (Between £10 and £20 IIRC)

I'm afraid I can't really help with any of the other London airports, except perhaps LCY, which I imagine is the easiest for getting into the city center.

Quoting TupolevTu154 (Reply 1):Flying into the smaller London airports is an advantage over LHR in my opinion. LHR is a shambles most of the time and would probably take more time to get off the aircraft, through immigration and bag collection etc than hopping on the train for a ride to central London from the smaller airports.

You're certainly right there, LHR is far from the best airport in the world!

Stansted is linked to the national rail network; there is a station beneath the terminal and it's only about a 40 minute ride out of London which isn't too expensive. Luton also has a 'parkway' station, which I believe is linked to the airport itself by a bus service, again, it's not far out of London. LCY is also linked to the Docklands Light Railway, which in turn connects to the tube. However, if you're looking at visiting Paris or Brussels then I'd recommend the Eurostar, it's cheap if booked reasonably in advance and direct; literally city centre to city centre.

Quoting PlymSpotter (Reply 2):However, if you're looking at visiting Paris or Brussels then I'd recommend the Eurostar, it's cheap if booked reasonably in advance and direct; literally city centre to city centre.

Ha ha, absolutely! I absolutely love the European rail system and I plan to use it whenever possible. However, there are some places I'd like to visit (including as far away as Morocco and Turkey) that merit traveling by air. Judging by the fares that I've looked at, I'll probably be splitting my flying between LHR and STN. Basically, on one hand, Ryanair's airfares are unbelievable at times and justify the hassle of flying through remote airports. On the other hand, LHR offers a lot of frequencies to a lot of destinations that other airports do not. Not to mention that flying with the likes of BA and IB allows me to accrue miles with AA (I believe, since they are OneWorld airlines). Give and take, I suppose...

Don't know about costs/too lazy to research them, though I would recommend using LCY if you were travelling to western Europe. Literally you clear the terminal, with baggage, around 20 minutes of touching down. Although I've always taken a hire car, I believe transport links to the city centre are good.

Also, if you are lucky and get a rare easterly wind, you will be treated to one of the most spectacular decents over London- I once landed this way from BSL in February and the views and visibility were stunning. Worth the price of the ticket alone, though of course my Company was paying.

Quoting Buckieboy (Reply 4):Don't know about costs/too lazy to research them, though I would recommend using LCY if you were travelling to western Europe. Literally you clear the terminal, with baggage, around 20 minutes of touching down. Although I've always taken a hire car, I believe transport links to the city centre are good.

LCY is amazing yes, but the trouble is most airfares are VERY pricey ex here. Also, the destinations are mainly to boring and financial centres eg Zurich, Frankfurt, etc... generally as a rule if youre wanting to fly to touristic hubs such as Barcelona, Berlin, Prague, you can't do so from LCY unless youre prepared to pay a lot and/or transit in ZurichFrankfurt using LH or Swiss. I flew on a 3 day long weekend to Dusseldorf which was GREAT as I could take in Cologne too for a great price ... all out of LCY.

The thing with Stanstead and Luton is that yes they are out the way but if you can get really low fares and you dont mind a 1.5 hour commute to the airport (incl. getting to Liverpool St or Kings Cross stations using the tube) then it's about a £10-12 fare to Luton and I think 50% more to Stansted using the express. There is easybus too but I think that initself can take an hour and a half because of London traffic.

I lived in NW London and so Luton was perfect. heathrow was good too - the tube was only about an hour and 10 mins door to door and the frequency of flights and all that was GREAT. Downside: Massive airport, massive security queues and turmoil at times (e.g. I got caught up in the Fog over Xmas 2006- WHAT a disaster!).....